It is widely complained by the students that researching academic tasks is one of the most challenging aspects. But the fact is that citing the sources from external sources is far more complicated and complex. By the time you reach college, you must have written many assignments and essays in your academic career. Hence the topic of referencing would not be a new one for you. Let us discuss the significance of the types of referencing styles in a paper.

Proper acknowledgement of the sources you have referred to in the paper is done through the process of referencing. In the academic context, the referencing should be done by providing the list of referred sources along with providing proper in-text citations. These lists are known as a reference list. It can be said that appropriate acknowledgement should be given to the referred external sources by providing proper citation within the text.

There are different types of referencing styles, and a specific set of guidelines should be followed in each case. Students have to remember this unique set of guidelines that make it very hard to implement various referencing styles. The students should have a general idea of the referencing styles, which are frequently used in the academic context. Further classification could be done in the academic referencing styles as per the variation in the way of recording the referred sources. There are majorly three types of it: –

Parenthetical styles – Before the full stop in a sentence, the in-text citations are provided in the parenthetical referencing style. Most of the frequently used referencing styles like Harvard, APA, MLA, etc., follow this format.

Documentary note styles – It is in the form of endnotes and footnotes that the references are denoted in the documentary note styles. The in-text citations are provided in the content using the numbers in the form of superscripts. The complete detail of the reference is provided in the bottom section of the same page, which is often termed as footnotes. The same references will be termed as endnotes if it is listed at the end of the whole paper. The prominent types of referencing styles coming under these classifications are Oxford and MHRA.

Numbered styles – The use of the Arabic numbers is done in this category of referencing style. The numbers are denoted in the square brackets as superscripts within the text. The reference list is provided after the whole text and is numbered for the convenience of the readers.

Let us move on to the discussion of the major types of referencing styles used in academic papers.

IEEE referencing style
It was the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that developed this referencing style. The referencing format is majorly used in the papers which pertain to technical studies like Information and Technology, Engineering, etc.

MLA referencing style
The Modern Language Association proposed the referencing style. The 8th edition of the MLA referencing style is being used in the present academic scenario. The scholars and researchers are much more comfortable with using MLA referencing style in their publications. The format highly abides with the parenthetical types of referencing styles since it clearly notes down the page number and the name of the author in the in-text citation.

AMA referencing style The referencing style is used in academic papers related to the medical discipline. The full form of the acronym AMA denotes the term “American Medical Association”. The in-text is symbolized in the form numbering as superscripts in this format of referencing.

APA referencing style
The American Psychological Association formulated the referencing style. The use of this format was only limited to papers in social sciences and psychology, but because of its simple and effective characteristics, it is now widely used in many other disciplines. In the current academic scenario, the 7th edition of the APA is being followed. The authors who are well comfortable in using the parenthetical referencing style often use this style.

OSCOLA referencing style
Articles related to the discipline of law recommend the use of the OSCOLA referencing style. The abbreviation OSCOLA stands for Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities. The OSCOLA referencing style comes under the documentary note method classification, and because of the same reason, the footnotes are used to note down the referred sources.

Chicago referencing style
The complete details about the format are mentioned under the Chicago Manual of Style. There are two types of referencing styles under this category, which are: Chicago A and Chicago B. The use of endnotes and footnotes could be done by the author by using the Chicago A referencing style. Though, the parenthetical approach of noting down the year and name of the authors as in-text citation is made in the case of Chicago B style.

Vancouver referencing style
It was the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ agency that the Vancouver style was presented to the academic community. Hence, in the research papers pertaining to the medical discipline, the Vancouver referencing style are majorly used. The sources are indicated by using the numbers in the text. The reference list is assigned with relevant numbers so they could be easily linked with the in-text citations.

Turabian referencing style
It is based on the parameters followed in the Chicago style of referencing that forms the Turabian referencing style base. Turabian style is very simple and is majorly used by students in academic papers. The Turabian referencing style also has two variations similar to that in the case of the Chicago referencing style. The two types of referencing styles are the author-date system and documentary note system.

Harvard referencing style
It is in the discipline of economics that the Harvard referencing style is majorly used. Though these types of referencing styles lack clear-cut guidelines on how to draft them, multiple organizations demand the implementation of their customized versions. The major institutes that demand the use of the Harvard style of referencing are British Standard Institution, the Australian government publishing service, etc.

Need help with different types of referencing styles?

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We hope that this article on different types of referencing styles was quite helpful for you. Thank you.